60 Second Ideas

60 Second Ideas - It's A Virtual Party - Go Cake Go

What do you get when you there are over 700,000 birthdays in the United States everyday, gourmet cakes and combine it with friends and family far and wide via the Internet for a virtual party? GoCakeGo.com

KieAnn Brownell is a self-described serial entrepreneur. She started her first business at the age of seven, when she and a friend checked out movies from the library and charged their friends admission to view them. They converted the crawl space into the “box seat” and charged double the price. That’s all it took to get her started as a successful business woman. After years of running her families wholesale flooring business, KieAnn was looking for a new challenge. Her entrepreneurial spirit from childhood still in full force and finding that indeed, there are 700,000 birthdays in the good ole US of A everyday, KieAnn said “Wow this might be something.”

Combining mouth watering cakes like chocolate, white buttercreame, carrot, lemon and raspberry torte with virtual parties with family and friends from all parts of the globe via the Internet, KieAnn Brownwell launched GoCakeGo.com in February of 2006 after 14 months of researching, planning and building a website.

In her own words, KieAnn says “My favorite part of this business is that we are truly a catalyst for connecting people.  When you send someone a birthday cake you are not only touching them yourself but you are initiating a spontaneous celebration.  Unlike flowers or cookies or something when someone gets a cake they usually invite others to join them and have a piece.  People love the surprise of receiving a cake from a friend or a loved one on their birthday.  It really is a step up from a birthday card.

Find a way to capitalize on the 700,000 birthdays per day and you could be eating your own cake filled with dough, the kind of dough you can spend that is…

Links: http://gocakego.com

Download gocakego.mp4 for Itunes/Ipod/mp4 player

60 Second Ideas - Six Degrees of Separation

This post is about six degrees of separation – I don’t mean the failed TV show, but as a practical matter in real life. It really is a small world out there. Anyway, last week, I was on the phone Cheryl McLaughlin, founder of the McLaughlin Human Performance Institute, (http://www.cherylmclaughlin.typepad.com, http://www.cherylmclaughlin.com) whom I had never met. Cheryl happened to listen in on the debut 60 Second Ideas Profit by Imagination Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio. She emailed me with some questions. I emailed her back and mentioned that she could call me if she had further questions. Through our emails we found that we had some things in common, namely we were both former college athletes and she used to live in my adopted home town of Boise,Idaho. She called me and found that we even knew some of the same people and we had a good time just talking about common experiences and our lives in general before we ever got to talking about business. Then after virtually becoming friends over the phone, we got to talking business - helping each other out, brainstorming and even imagining ideas on how we might be able to work together….very cool.

The Internet has made it easier than ever to come in contact with amazing people. Don’t be afraid to email someone or even call if you have questions, comments, or an idea. You never know what might transpire - what you can imagine and brainstorm together and at the very least you could have a new friend and contact.

Boomer Space

Here is a perfect example of taking a popular idea and tweaking it for a niche market. Everyone has heard of the social networking site, My Space. My Space and similar sites for the Generation X crowd have proven that they are far more than a fad.

Indeed social networking has evolved beyond hooking up to consumers seeking online connections that land them jobs, find them stuff and keep them entertained. In short, social networking is about marketing too and smart marketers are taking notice.

Well now comes Eons.com - a My Space style social networking site for boomers and matures. Developed by the founder of Monster.com, the site even include a death alert, so members know when online buds have moved on to that space in the great beyond.

According to Eons.com

• A whopping 70% of all new Eons members are between the ages of 50 and 60 years old.
• 45% of new Eons members are women.
• New Eons members are most likely to be from: California, Massachusetts, Alabama, Florida & Illinois.

Eons.com shows us that the possibilities are endless for taking good ideas to new niche markets and as for marketing in general to boomers, Eons makes it a whole new ball game.

Note: We are just a few days away from releasing our Top 10 Small Business Blogs for the 2nd Quarter of 2006. Stay Tuned!